This invention is intended to alleviate some of problems that are inherent in apparatus used to provide mobility for disabled persons. However, this device would be useful in many situations where transport is desired over rough terrain. This device is useful in the transportation of both persons and/or items across rough or smooth terrain, both outdoors and in an indoor situation. An analogous tool used by disabled or handicapped persons is a wheelchair, while an analogous load carrying device is commonly known as a skid-steer loader. Both items transport items and persons, yet neither one is able to be integrated fully in both an outdoor and an indoor setting.
While wheelchairs are the common form of transportation in areas that are prepared to receive these means of conveyance, areas such as nature trails, gravel paths, and crossings having excessive mud or water, generally prove to be insurmountable obstacles for the average wheelchair. In these more primitive conditions, wheels tend to find surface imperfections, such as rocks, to be barriers that are not readily rolled over. In situations where mud, sand, or snow are present, wheels will often sink into the mud, sand, or snow, causing the wheelchair to become mired and easily stuck.
The use of belts, placed over a series of wheels, in the form of a track assembly, will usually be able to traverse over the primitive areas that would generally restrict movement of a typical wheelchair. The multi-use capability of a belted track assembly is readily apparent in construction equipment as well as military vehicles. Small vehicles, such as a typical skid-steer loaders have significant mobility, through the use of controlling the speed and/or the direction of movement for each of the tracks.
While belted track assemblies provide significant advantages over wheels in rough terrain situations, such a means of conveyance prove utterly destructive to typical household surfaces, such as carpeting and many types of household flooring. The reason for this is that the surface of the track can only go forwards and backwards, which results in significant lateral friction during turning exercises. This causes scraping of smooth flooring, and virtual shredding of many types of carpets.